The Outlandish Companion - Diana Gabaldon [51]
Ishmael’s brows went up, compressing the three vertical scars between them.
“Huh,” he said again. “You forget that boy; he be gone.”
“Gone where?” Jamie asked sharply.
The narrow head tilted to one side, as Ishmael looked him over carefully.
“Gone with the Maggot, mon, ”he said. “And where she go, you don be going. That boy gone, mon,” he said again, with finality. “You leave, too, you a wise man.”
Pressed for the whereabouts of Mrs. Abernathy (the Maggot) and Ian, Ishmael reluctantly reveals that they have gone to Abandawe—a name Claire recognizes. It is a secret cave on the island of Hispaniola, carved by an underground river—a magic place, Ishmael assures them.
“You ain’ gone do the magic, what the Maggot do. That magic kill her, sure, but it kill you, too.” He gestured behind him, toward the empty bench. “You hear Bouassa speak? He say the Maggot die, three days. She taken the boy, he die. You go follow them, mon, you die, too, sure.”
Despite this chilling warning, there is no choice; they must go to Abandawe, and hope they are not too late.
Jamie turned, then stopped suddenly, and I whirled about to see what he had seen. There were lights in Rose Hall now. Torchlight, flickering behind the windows, upstairs and down. As we watched, a surly glow began to swell in the windows of the secret workroom on the second floor.
“It’s past time to go, ”Jamie said. He seized my hand and we went quickly, diving into the dark rustle of the canes, fleeing through air suddenly thick with the smell of burning sugar.
Leaving the scene of the crocodile’s fire, they sail downriver with their helpers, leaving in their wake a bloody slave uprising. Rose Hall is burning, and the lights of distant fires at other plantations wink into life against the dark mountains.
The trip to Hispaniola is undertaken at once, leaving the confusion of Jamaica, its slave risings and manhunts, behind. Arriving on Hispaniola with Lawrence Stern and the Scottish smugglers, Jamie and Claire take Stern as a guide to the hidden cave of Abandawe, leaving the others to sail a short distance away in order to avoid attracting attention.
Outside the cave, Claire hears the sound of standing stones, of a time passage, and has a sudden vision of Geillis Duncan, eyes green and gleaming in sardonic welcome. The Frasers leave Stern on guard outside the cave, and go down into darkness, after the witch and her hostage.
They are in time—but barely; Geillis is completing her elaborate preparations, gemstones laid out in a pentagram of protection, a glittering trail of diamond dust joining the points of her pentacle—and Ian, bound and gagged, laid across the pattern, ready for sacrifice.
Neither bargaining nor confrontation is of any use; telling Claire that she will have to “take the girl” but will leave her the man, Geilie sprinkles Ian with brandy, holding Jamie and Claire at bay with a loaded pistol. Jamie lunges at her, and she fires; Jamie drops, his face a mask of blood.
Moved beyond any thought of self-preservation, Claire seizes the ceremonial axe Geillis has brought for her sacrifice— and swings.
The shock of it echoed up my arm, and I let go, my fingers numbed. I stood quite still, not even moving when she staggered toward me.
Blood in firelight is black, not red.
She took one blind step forward and fell, all her muscles gone limp, making no attempt to save herself. The last I saw of her face was her eyes; set wide, beautiful as gemstones, a green water-clear and faceted with the knowledge of death.
Jamie is not dead, as Claire feared. He is wounded, but able to walk. With Young Ian, they make their stumbling way back out through the cave’s labyrinth, pursued by a rising wind that seems to make the cave behind them breathe.
Finding Lawrence outside, they find their way through the island’s jungles, toward the beach where they mean to rendezvous with their friends. Along the way, Young Ian tells them what little he knows of his own experience; Geillis Duncan apparently had been hunting a mythical stone